Welcome to SelfAdvocacy.Net

SelfAdvocacy.Net is a website about the international self advocacy movement. Self advocacy groups are made up of people with learning difficulties, people with intellectual disabilities, people with developmental disabilities and/or people with disabilities who speak up for themselves.

You can use this site to:

find links to self advocacy groups around the world;

tell people how to contact your group;

tell people about meetings, events and conferences that your group is planning;

tell people about things your group has done in the past;

share resources.

If you would like to tell us about a website or other information to add to this website or would like to help develop this website we would like to hear from you. Please contact us using our contact form.

What are self advocacy groups?

They are groups of people with learning difficulties, people with intellectual disabilities, people with developmental disabilities and/or people with disabilities who speak up for themselves and work to improve the lives of their members.

Back in 1968 the first group was formed in Sweden when a group was formed when a organisation for parents’ who had children with learning difficulties held a meeting for their son’s and/or daughters who had learning disabilities. The people at the meeting decided that they wanted to speak for themselves and they made a list of things they wanted to have changed in the services they were using.

From this initial meeting the idea of people with learning difficulties meeting together and choosing their own path forward has spread throughout the world. As you can see on this website there are now many self advocacy groups all over the world.

While many groups are called self advocacy groups, many self advocacy groups have chosen to be called ‘People First’ groups. A person with learning difficulties in Oregan in the United States who was part of a group of people learning difficulties planning a self advocacy conference said that he wanted to be treated like a person first. Hundreds, if not thousands, of self advocacy groups have taken on the name ‘People First’. Our sister website www.peoplefirst.org is all about those groups.

Self Advocacy .Net is not affiliated to any self advocacy groups or organisations.